Adult Music For Little Kids: Get Over It

When we get in the car, my daughter puts in her musical requests. “The Rolling Stones, please!” Yes, she’s three (almost four), and she loves her some Mick and Keith.

The quota of “adult” music to kiddie tunes in her section of my iPod is an almost two to one ratio. Just because they’re kids doesn’t mean they have to listen to inane bouncing around nonsense, right? Right?

Well, sort of. Because “adult” music is not always the kind you want your kids singing on YouTube. But for all the ickiness of tots twirling their hair and singing Lady GaGa’s Poker Face on Hannah’s post last week on Strollerderby, one commentor made a good point: “You think 9 year olds understand the meaning of the lyrics?”

Because I hadn’t a clue when I was a kid that Mick was “running to the shelter of” a Xanax. Knowing it now, and realizing I used to run around the house singing it, proves that no innocence was lost. I didn’t grow up to be a pill head. Nor do I have some sort of problem with hearing voices after choosing Laura Brannigan’s “Gloria“ as my favorite tune when I was a kid and then naming half of my dolls in honor of the paranoid pop song.

Maybe I’m slightly defensive here – after all, while reading Hannah’s post on Lady GaGa, I realized my daughter had walked into the room and was singing along (and I honestly couldn’t tell you WHERE she’d heard the song before). But she’s three. And just thinks “muh, muh, muh, mah” is really cool to say.

Kind of like “let me please introduce myself” at high Mick quality volume. We’re just listening to music. We don’t have to get into WHY Keith Richards looks so pickled and never pull up the Annie Liebowitz pictures of Jagger on tour.

We have limits – no Notorious BIG (and no, she didn’t get to watch the movie with us either), no matter how much fun is to say “uh.” Because, in the immortal words of Mick, “you don’t always get what you want . . .but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need!”

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